• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Lit GENRES you'd like to see

I think they're like Encylcopedia Brown stories, only shorter -- little logic puzzles that have the clue you need to solve the case in a throwaway line of dialogue. (Like from the only Encyclopedia Brown case I ever remember, Bugs Meaney is trying to sell a kid a sword with an inscription that says, "Presented this day, XYZ 1861, at the First Battle of Bull Run" -- how do you know it's a fake? Because they would not have known there'd be a Second Battle of Bull Run a few years later.)
Haha, I actually remember that one from when I was in elementary school -- in the story's solution, I remember how they also discussed how the Confederacy used a different name for the battle ("the Battle of First Manassas") than the Union, further disproving the sword's authenticity.
 
I can see that. Myself I guess I always wanted them to be "this scenario is happening, what will you do in it, what options will you take as you move forward in it?" More along the lines of an RPG in book form, I guess? Not something like "if you make this option then aliens attack, but if you make this option then for some reason there are no aliens and instead there's a mummy swarm". :p

I wasn't a big fan of that, but it never bothered me too much. I preferred it when all the options were self-consistent and you'd learn more about the backstory and context with multiple readings.

No, what I didn't like was when I stumbled upon one of the fake endings slipped into the book as easter eggs or something, and I'd try to backtrack to figure out how you were supposed to get there, but no matter how hard I looked, I could never find the page that would take you to that orphaned ending.

All it takes is someone to revitalize/bring them back. Like, you could have certain bonus choices that only show up when you scan a QR code, complete with video animation of your choice's outcome? It's not hard to think of ways to make it relevant again; I just thought of that now.

It looks like there's a whole line of app-enabled gamebooks, which combine the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format with keeping track of numbers and inventory items (at least, I assume they all have CYOA options; otherwise, it's just reading plus superfluous math. I've only read one, "Trial of the Clone").
 
Ryan North (of Dinosaur Comics fame) recently published two "chooseable-path adventures" based on Shakespeare plays: To Be or Not To Be and Romeo and/or Juliet. I haven't read the second one yet, but the first is completely brilliant.

One genre from the television series that never really appears in the novels is the "x planet" genre, where x = Romans, Chicago gangsters, Nazis, and so on. Are we too sophisticated for that these days? "A Piece of the Action" is probably my favorite episodes of the original show that's not "Balance of Terror."
 
One sub genre of sci-fi that TOS seemed to delve into a fair amount was Sword and Planet, at least, to my eyes. Stories like The Squire of Gothos, Bread and Circus, and Friday's Child. I quite like a lot of other stories that deal with cultures that are not very technologically advanced, and the stories really embrace the non-technological aesthetic. Day of the Dove, even though ship bound, All Our Yesterdays has a hint of it, and even The Omega Glory has a gladiatorial spirit. A Private Little War has an intriguing bit of mysticism, without really explaining it away with science.
 
One genre from the television series that never really appears in the novels is the "x planet" genre, where x = Romans, Chicago gangsters, Nazis, and so on. Are we too sophisticated for that these days? "A Piece of the Action" is probably my favorite episodes of the original show that's not "Balance of Terror."

I did a mini-marathon of those stories a few months ago, which was great fun. A Piece of the Action is a nice bit of whimsy, and Bread and Circus became one of my surprise favorites, I never expected to like it as much as I do.
 
One sub genre of sci-fi that TOS seemed to delve into a fair amount was Sword and Planet, at least, to my eyes. Stories like The Squire of Gothos, Bread and Circus, and Friday's Child. I quite like a lot of other stories that deal with cultures that are not very technologically advanced, and the stories really embrace the non-technological aesthetic. Day of the Dove, even though ship bound, All Our Yesterdays has a hint of it, and even The Omega Glory has a gladiatorial spirit. A Private Little War has an intriguing bit of mysticism, without really explaining it away with science.
Shadow Lord in the novels is like this. There's also the TNG novel Masks. I'm sure there are others, but yeah, it seems to have fallen away (probably because of the TNG interpretation of the Prime Directive).
 
Shadow Lord in the novels is like this. There's also the TNG novel Masks. I'm sure there are others, but yeah, it seems to have fallen away (probably because of the TNG interpretation of the Prime Directive).

Great! I have Shadow Lords, figuring the cover is advertising it as exactly what we're talking about (I also got the book as part of a collection of 80's novels that tie-in with each other, loosely). I'm saving it for a rainy day! That's good to know about Masks, I'll have to give that one another look, thank you! :)
 
I've been reading Star Wars: Death Troopers and I wast thinking it could be fun to see a Star Trek horror book like this. They already did some horrorish stories on the shows with TNG's Genesis and Ent.'s Impulse, so it wouldn't be totally out of place.
I would enjoy some more books like The Never-Ending Sacrifice that focuses on one character over a certain period of time.
 
I've never heard of Crossroad, and it does sound interesting. I'm adding to my Google Books Wishlist.
 
Haha, I actually remember that one from when I was in elementary school -- in the story's solution, I remember how they also discussed how the Confederacy used a different name for the battle ("the Battle of First Manassas") than the Union, further disproving the sword's authenticity.

Oh, God, I remember that, too.
 
I would tip my hat to whoever writes CYOA stories; how do you keep the details straight? You've got multiple choices, some of which lead to the same conclusion. How do you keep from orphaning a storyline?
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top